WHEN Amy Tinkler returns home from Rio, one of her first tasks will be to attend Durham High School for Girls to receive her GCSE results. It is to be hoped she gets an A for PE.

Of all the remarkable aspects to the 16-year-old’s stunning Olympic bronze medal, perhaps the most incredible is that she is young enough to have been combining the last two years of her preparation for the Games with studying for her GCSEs. When she should have been competing in the European Championships, she was sitting tests in maths and English.

Yet for all her inexperience at the highest level – she only stepped out of the junior ranks at the start of last season – Bishop Auckland-based Tinkler was always destined to be a gymnastic star.

Her mother coached recreational gymnastics, and she first attended the South Durham Gymnastics Club at the age of two. Earlier this year, as we chatted at the club’s ‘Pink gym’ base at Spennymoor Leisure Centre, she joked that she was doing tumbles when she was four. “I think it was probably three,” chipped in one of the club’s joint head coaches, Rachael Wright.

By the age of five, Amy’s talent was enabling her to stand out from her peers, and by the time she was entering her teenage years, she was winning national junior titles.

“It wasn’t that Amy was necessarily the most naturally talented of all the gymnasts we’ve had at the club,” said Rachael. “But she was always the most determined to make the most of her talent and it quickly became obvious that she had something really special.”

“She had a real competitive streak,” added joint head coach Nicola Preston. “If the girls were collecting stickers, Amy had to be the person with the most.”

By the time she was 12, she was winning the Most Promising Newcomer Award at The Northern Echo’s Local Heroes Awards, and last year she was part of the British team that claimed a team bronze medal at the World Championships in Glasgow.

That proved she could compete with the world’s best, but even so, the poise and composure that enabled her to claim a bronze medal last night was remarkable in one so young.

It speaks volumes for her character, but also for the grounding she has received at the South Durham club, a grassroots success story that caters to more than 2,000 visitors a week, one of which is now an Olympic medallist.

For all that she is forced to spend much of her time at British Gymnastics’ high-performance base at Lilleshall, Amy likes nothing better than to be training with her mates in Spennymoor.

It was there that I last saw her a month or so ago, excitedly trying on her new Olympic outfit in front of her closest friends. The week before, she had joined them at the National Senior Team Championships in Liverpool. The bronze medal she won there probably still means as much as her Olympic award.

“I think being here helps keep Amy grounded,” said Rachael. “We all know how good she is, she loves competing but enjoys being at her home gym training with her friends.

“It takes the pressure off her a bit. She’s close to some of the GB girls as well, but there are girls here that she’s known since she was four or five years old.

“Nobody treats her any different, although we’re all really proud of how far she’s gone in the last couple of years.”

Last night, she went further than even her coaches can initially have thought possible.